


The Mark

by gyromitra



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Because it is stalking me currently, Dishonored!AU, Drabbles, F/F, M/M, Until this idea leaves me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-01 21:56:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 8,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8639683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyromitra/pseuds/gyromitra
Summary: Dishonored!AU that haunts me recently. Drabbles.
Drabble 8 warning: Platonic lesbians and sex themed murder - be advised.Drabble 10 warning: Platonic Widow/Tracer and mentioned incest and rape.Drabble 17 warning: Might be considered dubcon. Either way, it's not healthy.Drabble 21 warning: Suicide





	1. The Witch

**Author's Note:**

> Which means I need to get it out of my system. Because this fandom put my creativity at a strange ocd level. And I'm not stopping anything else I have going on at the moment. So, enjoy. Critique would be nice :)

She moves like a heron when she comes closer, each motion elegant, each step stilted. Black roses adorn the hem of her robe and décolletage, complimenting the bluish tint of her skin. Yellow eyes sparkle in the shadow. Old soldier inhales sharply when he recognizes her.

“And what is that my web caught tonight?” She intones lightly.

“Amelie…”

“Yes, that was once my name. No more.” She kneels by him, observing. “I am Widowmaker.”

He struggles, briefly, against his bonds. “You killed Gerard.”

“Oh, you would feel pity for that wretch of my husband,” She becomes enraged, she spits the last words at him, “when it was him that made me into what I am now!”

Widowmaker shakes and her fingers caress a stray rat looking at her with a startling spark of intelligence in its beady black eyes.

“You old fools and your masks, you think that you hide behind them but all it makes you is plain easy to read. All the hate, the rage, the regret, all so delicious to Him.” She laughs mirthlessly. “And there is a lot I could bargain you for from the one they call The Reaper.”

Old soldier stills, breath catching in his throat.

“Yes, the one that kills in the night, the one that comes for those who had not wronged him even if he thinks otherwise, and for those that had wronged him indeed.”

“You wouldn’t…” He actually pleads, the prospect of just being handed defenseless to the assassin terrifies him. He fought him. He had seen him kill. The ghost, the thing that goes bump in the night. The Reaper.

“Oh, but I would, wouldn’t I? I wonder, maybe he will leave your insides splayed for all to see while you still draw your breath, or maybe he will find an ironic death for you since he is well versed in those?” She smiles when he tries uselessly to free himself again.

“Amelie.” He implores the dead woman again.

“Wait for me, little fly,” she coos while standing up. “I have a bargain to strike.”

She leaves him in the darkness, with the sound of little claws scurrying on wooden floorboards.


	2. The Bargain

When the old soldier drifts in an out of consciousness, his body wracked by a wicked poison, he dreams of oily blackness hungrily snatching the stars from the sky, until it consumes all. But, incidentally, he also dreams of one moment stilled in time, seen from every angle, them both smiling, their hands raised and touching in the dead air, congratulatory. Nothing much, but a fragment of a life that maybe, once, existed, painful in its normalcy and triviality.

When knifelike fingers tear off his mask he tries to protest – it is a pathetic mewl that dies as darkness calls him again, blinking lights extinguished one by one, falling into the hungry maw of the nexus, and the body at his feet is forever preserved like a pinned butterfly with wings of spilled blood.

When the old soldier wakes up, shivering, in pain, dizzy, lost, it is in a dirty hovel away from the Spider’s den, the stink of sewer permeating all, his fingers clutching a charm, and he starts, mask loosely falling down to his knees, for there are five fresh gashes in the stone left for his eyes only.


	3. The First Betrayal

Falling hard from the heavens, she hits the ground. Her clockwork wings snap and break in the sparkling shower of mangled bits and pieces of scrap under her own weight, but she recovers quickly, blood marring her angelic face and fear haunting her shining eyes. She crawls towards him, her hand reaching, a trail of red behind her feet.

“Help me! He’s coming, he’s coming for me!” The old soldier runs. He jumps over her, his rapier drawn and ready in his palm, just in time to block a vicious jab of the dagger as Reaper comes from the shadow, a ghost always half a step ahead. But the soldier, he was trained to fight an enemy such as him, one that moved from place to place in a blink of an eye with no motion in-between. One that was capable of draining soul and life from his victim.

Behind them, Angela screams in pain and terror, and the moment of a hesitation old soldier shows is enough for Reaper to find an opening. The kick sends him sprawling down to the cobblestones, his whole body hurting from the impact.

She gasps and sobs when he turns back only to see her in Reaper’s grasp, clawed hand on her throat.

“The good Lady Doctor,” the voice from under the owl-like mask is hollow. “Angela Morrison of House Ziegler.”

“Reaper.” The old soldier’s voice is raspy, but the assassin brings up one gloved finger to silence him.

“Here stand your judge, jury and executioner, Lady Doctor. Confess your sins.”

“No, I never, never, oh…” Tears stream down her face and pointed tips dig deeper into her skin. “Jack…” The old soldier almost reaches to his face when she angles and looks at Reaper, begging. “Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry, believe me, believe me, I never…” The assassin tightens his hold again.

“Confess.” He repeats.

“I’m sorry, sorry, forgive me, I’ve drugged you,” she babbles now. “I knew you would do right by me, I needed your station, I needed to be someone, so I could… I could do good.”

The old soldier feels himself lowering his rapier, the blade swaying uselessly by his leg, bile raising in his throat.

“And then… then… that man, I loved him, for mercy’s sake, I loved him,” Angela wails. “No one was supposed to get hurt! No one! He lied to me! I let him lie to me!”

“But this is not all you have to say, isn’t it, Lady Doctor?” Reaper pushes, and while she clutches at his cloak, the bony mask seems to stare at the old soldier.

“He was still alive, Reyes, lord Reyes. He was still alive, when they took him. When I let them take him. Oh, Jack, forgive me!”

“I won’t.” The blade moves in a flash. A spray of blood and Angela falls to the ground clutching her throat, trying to stem the flow, gurgling and wheezing, deathly tremors winning over her body. Reaper steps over her.

The assassin stands before the old soldier and brings his hand to the other man’s mask, smears her blood on the grey metallic surface.

“Those are the fruits of good intentions, Jack.” And then he is gone in the blink of an eye. The old soldier remains next to the corpse of what once was his wife, one sentence ringing in his ears.

‘ _He was still alive, when they took him_.’


	4. The Fugue Feast

Soldier fights for his breath as his body lies like a splayed butterfly with wings of spilled blood and with each gasp the darkness grows closer – until he no longer is dying in the ruins of everything they built together – not unless the earth split and crumbled with it all, which wouldn’t surprise him really.

He is light on his feet, taking in the fragmented landscape, the little images frozen in time. His own body lying to the side. Another set of stairs and there is his wife, screaming, held back, her hand reaching for something, her mechanical halo shining. He never loved her, the soldier reflects in a moment of honesty.

“You are an interesting man, Jack.” The black-eyed deity welcomes him.

It is a time of the Fugue Feast.

*

It is a time of the Fugue Feast.

Gabriel can be the one standing before him because the time does not exist and is not recorded.

“I miss you every day,” the old soldier says in a moment of honesty, words fleeting and never leaving his lips.

“I know. I miss you too,” comes the not-answer.

And the world could crumble again, because when the old soldier opens his eyes again there is no one, not even a memory.


	5. A Truth

“What motivates you, my friend?” The Outsider asks. The old soldier mulls the question – fundamental on its own – over.

“A truth. It’s the least he deserves.” Finally, he answers.

“Each individual has their own reality, and with their reality comes their truth. Your truth, Jack, is going to be different from the truth the beggar in the streets holds or the royal lord sitting down to his supper believes.” An obvious observation, the old soldier doesn’t mention, but the deity knows. He gestures to the frozen woman, rigid, long grey hair hugging her slim and regal frame, as she lines a shot with a small crossbow, not unlike the one the old soldier keeps by himself. “Her truth began in a bloody feud between families. Now it is a closely held belief in what has to be done.”

“One truth I would want to know.”

Outside of the Void, the old soldier sleeps in an abandoned house, on the second floor, by the rotted out stairs, huddled in a corner. Wolfhound guards him, resting its head in his lap.


	6. The Wolfhound

The Plague spreads, slowly takes the city over, house after house, street after street, human life after human life. As the old soldier travels, he thinks he recognizes more and more faces, some more familiar than others, all weeping bloody tears of the end of an era.

Wolfhound licks reassuringly old soldier’s half-gloved hand – where the Mark snuggly sleeps settled into his skin – and then runs few paces forward to snap its maws at a lone rat.

“Hey, friend, don’t leave me behind,” the old soldier calls softly after him, warm fondness in his voice, and the wolfhound’s ears twitch as it comes back, a playful spring in its step. But then it stops, a growl just under its breath, sniffing the air. “What is it?”

Without further sound the wolfhound darts, head down to the ground, teeth bared, a snarl beginning to rumble in its insides, and rounds the corner. There is a scream, shocked voices, shots fired, and the old soldier runs, crossbow ready in his hand.

“Accursed mongrel!”

A thunder of a gun, answered with a suffering wail and punctuated with a yelp of pain. The old soldier crouches and fires a bolt, and the watchman starts, his shoulder hit, but others line their pistols. He dashes behind the cover. Old wood fragments under the barrage.

One bullet grazes his neck.

 It is then that the screams, of terror and death, begin.

The old soldier doesn’t have to look when he steps out and walks towards the wolfhound as Reaper stands surrounded by the bodies, his pistol leveled at the other man’s head.

“If anyone is going to end you, it will be me, Jack. No one else.” The old soldier doesn’t mind, the fear of the assassin has left him somewhere along the way, driven out by the need to understand, and even that want only simmers under his calm. He kneels by the body of his friend and glides his fingers along the lines of its fur. “Maudlin fool.”

“Maybe.” The old soldier answers when Reaper leaves him, not dwelling on the detail that the wound the assassin bore mirrored one that killed the wolfhound.


	7. The Lying Tongue

Gabriel resides in a darkness inexplicable and inescapable, the kind of darkness where any distraction is a welcome respite, be it even pain, because it makes him remember that he still exists on some primal level. That he simply is alive, lost in memories, in grudges, in his own mind.

So it doesn’t come to him as a surprise when he wakes up on a crumbling island floating in nothingness, he goes wherever his fading senses take him, grabs all and any strand of fluctuating sanity between his fingers.

“I wonder, your lover taken from you, then killed. You, forgotten even by your executioners. Everything you worked for, together, burned down. The dying Capital. What will you do, Gabriel?” The Outsider asks, and he is the last person the deity should ask, as Gabriel gazes upon the Mark on his skin.

_“I will erase any and all proof of his existence.”_ Reaper answers, because if he can’t have him, no one will even remember him.

He is back in the darkness, but now Reaper feels the strength drumming under his skin, and he digs himself out of the prison catacombs with his own nails, newborn, weak but powerful.


	8. The Witch, The Couch and The Painting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabble Warning: It has non-sexual Widow/Tracer and sexual murder. Be warned.

The Witch sits, her legs crossed, black roses in her hair. She sits and sips wine, lips deceitfully gentle on the rim of the glass. The Witch, she observes her boon, her gift, her bargain, the purest painting she ever put her brush to, obscenely defiled.

The lithe thing, it dances on the bed, head thrown back in the rapture, hands seeking purchase with abandon, her voice singing like a little bird, each moan melodic and cutting, and both men, they set an unrelenting pace.

Lena reaches the crescendo and Widowmaker sets the glass back to the table, her head tilting to the side in anticipation. She is not dissatisfied when her boon finds the knife in the sweaty sheets. In one rapid circular motion blood paints the room.

Lena slips out of the bed, blade forgotten, red on the canvas of her face, breasts and back, white dripping down her tights, comes closer, stretches alluringly presenting herself.

The Witch had never before seen something so revoltingly beautiful, so profanely fine-looking, and her heart stirs for the little songbird that was returned to her.

Lena presses forward and plucks a grape from the table. Ever so slowly, she bites on it, never taking her eyes from that of the Witch.

“Did you like it?” A childlike enthusiasm, a sweet little quip.

“It is perfect, my Ratcatcher.”

“Whatever will we do next?” Lena twirls unhurriedly, blood starting to dry on her skin, hips swaying in sensual motion. And she smiles, radiant, like a sun the Witch hates and wants to see thrown into the Void. “Oh, I know, there will be a masquerade! I love those!”

 “Whatever you wish, songbird.” Widowmaker nods. Lena sits by her on the couch and takes her glass, laughing, sound akin to little bells jingling the Witch remembers from a time lost long ago.


	9. The Rampant Hunger

Reaper hungers. For what, he does not know. It gnaws at his insides and at his mind, a curling, invading want, suffocating, every breath a fight.

He stands above the bodies, his claws dripping gore, a red sound on the cobblestones, when he sees the other one hidden away in the darkened alleyway – mask not unlike his, but smooth and featureless – and the hunger flares up desperately to clutch at his throat. He pursues the prey, yet it evades him.

*

A chance meeting, the next one is, and starved, Reaper hunts. His quarry is a resourceful one, nevertheless the first blood between them belongs to him – and he revels in it.

*

Books fall to the ground, but still in the air never move, stopped in their flight. Reaper observes, pacing, touching, snarling, but his prey merely is something that only exists as an unchanging afterimage.

“Interesting, that one, isn’t he, Gabriel?” The Outsider asks. “He was granted strength, yet to be used. A truth, he searches for. Maybe your path will cross with his again.”

*

This time they both bleed and bear each other’s marks. Reaper feels satiated with fear consumed, eases off the hunt.

*

With the bargain struck, talons tear off the mask in spite of a pathetic mewl from the old soldier and Reaper feels his blood run cold. There is a hunger thrashing in his breast, shredding his insides to ribbons. _I will erase every proof of your existence because the only one allowed to devour you is me_.

“Fear not, Witch. I will come for you,” Reaper promises as he leaves with his burden.


	10. The Littlest Rat Catcher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabble Warning: It has non-sexual Widow/Tracer and mentioned incest and rape. *takes a breather from translating Mercy had it all* *ends with this*

Lena is twelve years old when she loses her best friend. She is told that Amelie was a bad woman, that she killed her husband Gerard and fled. But Lena knows better, because Lena is many things – stupid she is not.

*

She is fourteen when at night something lures her to a window overlooking the garden and there she sees a familiar silhouette putting a shushing finger to its lips. Lena climbs over the windowsill and escapes the oppressing house for a breath of cold air.

Amelie puts a black rose in her hair and smiles like she always did. Lena is many things – bashful she is not.

*

It comes a year later when her drunk father finds his way to her room. He tells Lena he loves her, that she is beautiful, and then he takes her.

Afterwards, he calls her a strumpet just like her mother and hits her till she bleeds from her other lips too.

Lena doesn’t cry because she is many things – unbroken she is not.

*

Lena is sixteen when Amelie takes her hand and chastely kisses the corner of her lips. She will ask for no more, they both know, and there will be nothing more, yet Lena gives Amelie her everything in a dark alley, her back burned by cold bricks, her legs locked around the random man. His blood paints the passion on the paved road.

And Lena loves the adoration in Amelie’s eyes, because she is many things – a Lady she is not.

*

She is seventeen when they find her bloodied in the garden, draped over a bed of black petals, sprawled open, a dagger in her hand. Lena screams and fights frantically as they drag her inside, she bites and scratches, snarls and howls.

They lock her up and she throws herself at doors, walls and windows, because she is many things – patient she is not.

*

Nineteen springs has she seen, two from the confines of her room, when the death comes to her with a black rose held between its claws. Lena smiles and dresses herself. The rose she pins in her hair. Amelie waits for her.

Lena knows happiness in her heart because she is many things – but alone she is no more.


	11. Birds of a Feather

It is a peaceful evening when his brother comes to him with a gentle click and whirl of a clockwork apparatus. No words are exchanged when he sits down by him and looks over the harbor where the sun sets in a smoldering inferno.

They contemplate, two birds of prey, the fleeting beauty of the moment as the sun plunges into the sea giving way to inky blackness dotted with points of a silvery light.

“He is coming,” Genji says, words like silk rolling off his tongue.

“Let him come,” Hanzo replies, harsh edge dulled by weariness.

Wind slowly caresses their silhouettes, bold darkness cut from the softer background. Blood stands between them, blood binds them, and blood is on their hands.

“I will stand with you.”

Hanzo knows that. He also knows that the retribution is looming upon them – the Leviathan gleefully divulged his secret. Indeed, the blood shed in battle runs deeper than the blood of the womb, he thinks, as he glances at his brother, calm in the face of a storm years in brewing.

“The Dragons will soar the skies again.”

“You and me, brother.”

No other words need to be exchanged. Such is their way.


	12. The Wanton Flesh

“Who are you?” Blue eyes search the white surface of the mask and Reaper moves closer, his claws biting deeper into pliant flesh, droplets of blood slowly drifting down the unforgiving metal.

“Don’t you know me? I know you.” The assassin retorts, each word a mouthful of molten anger. Then laughs. It is almost accusing, on its own, but only he knows he is laughing at himself. “Do you think truth will bring you release?”

“The truth is not for me.” Reaper snarls as his other hand curls around the metallic edges and tears off the old soldier’s mask in one fluid motion. It rattles on the wood, each sound a thunder.

“What good is truth to the dead?” The old soldier closes his eyes as cold points ghost over his face, over his scars, leave a burning path anywhere they linger.

“He was alive…”

“So you remember the confession of the good Lady Doctor.” With his face held in the vice-like grip, the hand on old soldier’s neck travels lower, drawing red lines on his chest. “How long has it been since anyone touched you?”

The old soldier doesn’t answer, his breath coming in short rasps, hitching with every little nip and prick.

“You should have thought about that earlier. There’s a deep unmarked grave, with no stone and no name on it.”

“How would you know?” His voice is breaking, and Reaper savors the moment both ecstatic and devastating.

“He called for you as he died. I was his executioner.” And how do those cut lips tremble, how do those tears slowly leave their mark. Reaper takes a step back and the old soldier doesn’t offer any resistance, he sinks to his knees, crumples almost like a child’s toy with strings cut. “If you want your truth, find the Hidden Heir before me. I will be waiting.”

“And remember, I will erase you name, Jack, because I will be the only one to speak it ever again, as I lie you down to your rest.”

Reaper leaves, but in reality he flees from this want to touch the skin with his bare fingers, to devour, to mark with nails and teeth in ways intimate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be actually the biggest batch of the exposition i got so far, go figure.


	13. The Injustice

Fareeha understands the injustice of it all.

She remembers the time when she was but a little girl with a smile on her lips and wonder in her eyes, when the world was straightforward and truths were uncomplicated. Now, the reality is painted with unlimited shades of grey, and every hue has a reason for its existence.

Those people, the ones she looked up to, the ones that inspired her.

Her mother, strong and proud, a bastion of stability in the restless sea of change, oh, how she missed her, how she grieved in her own way, swore to be just like her – a protector of those in need.

Her mother’s friends who held her hands and led her onwards after she was left all alone, thanks to them she familiarized herself with the other kind of love. Gentle and passionate, communicated in glances, feather-like touches and hidden smiles, consummated – burning like an oil flame – behind closed doors and away from prying eyes.

But then, they taught her also that the love can wilt like a flower in a vase as they drifted apart, resentment and hurt divided between them.

She lost them too. Regained her mother. Learnt the world was not a clear thing and the truths were always convoluted labyrinthine affairs. She understood the injustice of it all.

Now, the death hounds her each step, a creeping thing coiling in shadows, ready to strike with a slightest provocation. So Fareeha smiles and comes forward with her head held high in a dare, her shoulders heavy with the sins of the others.

She yearns for the time when she was but a little girl – and knows there is no way back, only forward, to greatness and glory, be it in life or in death.

After all, what is she if not her mother’s daughter.


	14. The Roving Feet

Where the old soldier goes, the death follows. It’s in the little black eyes that observe and gauge. It thrums in shadows, a clink there and a rattle here, always present, a stretch of his senses. A whisper of his name in the moan of strained wood and the sound carried on a gust of wind.

The old soldier stops.

“I know you’re there. You may as well show yourself.”

And the death obliges the call forming out of shadows. Silvery claws reach out and tangle in white hair playing with wayward locks, almost a caress, almost a mockery.

“Why are you following me?”

“Am I now, Jack? Or is it you that walks with me since I am your final destination?” The hand recedes and Reaper observes the light playing on the old soldier’s mask.

“You won’t give me the truth. I have no reason to follow you.”

Reaper laughs.

“A part of it rests at the Old Docks, in the words of assassins, as much as they can be trusted. Will you be fast enough to catch them, Jack?” The old soldier starts at the implication. “I will walk with you, here and there, because only I am allowed to know your ways.”

*

“And now, that he is regained?” The Outsider inquires.

“It changes nothing,” Reaper answers, even if it changes everything.


	15. The Second Betrayal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot happens. Situs Inversus.

Soft drizzle falls upon the body of his brother, throat ripped open by a vengeful predator and blood flowing no more, his cold fingers clutching the bow to his chest. Genji takes a step forward, towards the old soldier, and automata leg gives under him with a tearing screech of metal gears grinding to a halt. He sinks to his knee.

This is not his brother’s killer, but he is the ruin of them both. Genji smiles, left arm only a jagged remnant of a broken apparatus sticking out the shoulder, but still he brings up his sword, and in the shudder of the man he sees recognition.

“I had killed you, yet here you stand with favor of the Leviathan.”

“You missed,” the old soldier responds tersely, guarded, hand moving to his hip to rest at the hilt of the rapier, but he seems to be addressing other than the younger Dragon.

“I had pierced your heart and twisted my blade,” Genji tries to rise up but claws gripping his clockwork spine bite into delicate flesh below and Reaper, emerged from coalescing shadows, leans forward, voice dangerous and low.

“Then it is good this man’s heart beats on the other side of his chest. Doesn’t it, Jack?”

“I see,” Genji closes his eyes for a briefest of moments and laughs. “So this is how we failed, a mere throw of the chance.”

“Is it?” Metal digs deeper – blood trickles along the lines of Genji’s neck, tickling, teasing of things to come. “Tell him of the compensation.”

“The payment was made by the royal treasury. The deposit bore the imperial seal. An adequate price for those two, even if only one of them was to die.”

“That’s impossible,” the old soldier falters, his chest heaving. “No more than two people could have… It can’t be right.”

“You should know, Jack, that the imperial seal would be almost impossible to falsify, and even if, what reason would be there for such trickery?” Reaper gloats, his claws tightening on the captive, metal grating on metal, and he yanks his hand back ripping the machine from the living body in the shower of blood, gleaming cogs and sparkling wires.

Genji parts his lips in soundless scream and falls next to his brother. The Dragons soar the skies no more, but the old soldier stays, his trembling fingers removing the mask – one side of the divide between him and the assassin.

“How? How do you know?” He asks, something breaking so beautifully in his blue eyes, and Reaper strides to him, deadly claws splaying on the old soldier’s chest.

“How many years did he spend, that man, listening to the rhythm of your heart, Jack? Would he not notice the beat different from every other heart?” Reaper’s hand moves and clutches his left wrist in bruising grasp. “Wouldn’t he be the only one to know your true natural hand?”

“And why would he…?”

“On the precipice of death those to be executed confess the strangest things,” Reaper laughs with malice and falls back, shadows coiling around his person until only words remain.

“But you would know all about that, wouldn’t you, **Lord Regent**?”


	16. The Cowardice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slowly getting there.

A mournful whale song cuts the darkness as the old soldier contemplates the scene unfolded before him – he takes a step forward, hesitation halting him immediately, his hand listless in the air, and then, finally, he reaches out, fingers resting between the shoulders of the cloaked figure, hard leather crinkling under his skin.

“Who are you?” He asks the cold air even if the answer is just in his reach, a movement and a half in front of him while the moment lingers frozen into existence as a memory of the Void. The claws, hovering over the surface of the mask resting on the worn scratched table, reaching for it or just letting it lie there, sharp, deadly, burn his fingertips with ice on contact, and the old soldier turns away, another question stuck in his throat.

“A remarkable restraint,” The Outsider observes, his head inclined to the side, black eyes intrigued.

“A coward’s way out,” the old soldier doesn’t look back.


	17. The Errant Mind

When they chance upon each other in passing, it is not a gentle nor tender matter. The old soldier struggles for breath but fights it not, knowing it isn’t his time yet, the assassin has made his point time again and again. Instead, his fingers slowly inch forward, to rest at the edge of the other’s mask – no further – a question and an answer at the same time.

“I still mean it,” the words slip in a gasp, hurried to get out before his throat seizes and refuses them.

“Dead men have no need for such trifles,” Reaper mocks him, cold and detached even as the claws tip the old soldier’s mask to the side. It catches on the rim of the collar, then slides down and falls to the ground. The old soldier closes his eyes and leans into the wall, the wood smelling of damp rot and swamp.

“So desperate. So needy.” The words are an echo of something long past – now the only intention they carry is to harm, to scrape the wounds raw, and the old soldier feels how they do cut to the bone and bleed him dry. He is happy to let them to.

“Yes.” It comes in a plea, a weak, fevered whisper longing to be heard as claws rip the buttons of the jacket off, one by one, each hitting the floor with a subdued thump.

“And it does you no difference who it is.” A statement, not a question, almost like a physical blow, and the old soldier chokes back a sob behind his gritted teeth.

“It would,” he offers as the jacket pools around his feet and burning metal shreds the shirt exposing the scarred skin underneath. “It would,” he repeats fervently when claws dig into his flesh and leave bloody trails behind.

The ravenous hand finds its way to the hardness between his legs and the old soldier gasps, biting his lip with force enough to draw a trickle of red.

“You find pleasure in it.” Another cut to collection, another hurting stab. He is thankful for it.

“I don’t.”

For a moment, blue gaze meets dark hollows of the mask, and everything is stilled. The old soldier breaks the contact and his own fingers unbuckle the belt and untangle the ties – then his arms rest at his sides, accepting what is to come.

He can almost imagine the sharp intake of the air on the other side of the mask, few tense seconds between them, gone as he is forced to the ground, his face thrust into the dirt, his flesh exposed and cloth bunched at his knees.

The old soldier can’t help the whimper between his lips, be it ache or want. It matters not when he digs his nails into wood and scrapes his cheek on a stone.

It is raw, painful and welcome, a familiar hurt calling something from deep within. Claws tangle in his hair, find the purchase and twist, and jerk him upwards. The old soldier cries out.

“You moan like a wanton whore for everyone?” A remark punctuated with a thrust, like a lash of a whip.

“Only for him,” he responds breathless, neck taut and back arched.

“Liar.”

With a bite to his own fist, the old soldier comes undone and is released – falling graceless to the ground – and maybe the hand on his back lingers longer than it should, a moment lost and forgotten as he curls on himself, his breath labored, sight unfocused on steel-tipped boots.

“I’ll leave you no other way. I will take everything from you. You will think only of me, Jack.”

When the footsteps fade, the old soldier laughs through tears at the sheer absurdity of it all, for in his mind there is only that man, the one that will kill him – yet again.


	18. The Restless Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plot dump basically.

With every languorous brush stroke she leaves a dark line on plains of unblemished white skin. With every whirl of damp bristles she writes a story of little girl lost and of wolfhounds that stalk waiting to devour her, and with every motion her canvas sighs and shifts under her caress.

“Oh, Amelie,” Lena whispers, lip between her pearly teeth, stomach taut and shivering in cold breeze tempting with the aroma of salt, fish and rotting bones waiting to become something less than alive and something more than dead.

“Yes, my songbird?” The Witch inquires, the brush set aside for a fleeting moment to dip into tincture red like blood that flows from slaughterhouses into the sea, a sin unredeemed and unforgotten.

“The masquerade, they will be there, won’t they?”

“Yes, my songbird,” the brush resumes and Lena laughs in demure delight as she nuzzles the fur of a white rat. Crimson circles burn into skin of her breasts. “Everyone will be there. After all, it is not an ordinary day Lord Protector’s daughter makes her debut.”

“And how is she now, little lady Fareeha Wilhelm?” Lena giggles, fingers ruffling the white coat, lips touching to pink ear, and the rat stills, red eyes following the motion of the painting unraveling.

“Proud, like her mother. Strong, like her father.” The Witch drops her brush and sinks her fingers in the pigment. Slowly, her hand engulfs the brittle neck of her little precious bird, rests there, until the imprint sets into the skin to stay, the testament of the moist darkness that curls on the inside and laps on the outside. “But the pride, it comes before the fall, and the stronger they are, the sooner they break their wings.”

“And don’t they all fall to their Death?” Lena raises her head, eyes bright and shining, like stars begging the Void to snuff them with hunger primeval.

“My Ratcatcher,” the Witch kisses her cheek, a simple encounter of flesh. “They will all fall, that I promise you, and we will dance over their rotting carcasses while the roses bloom.”

“Many, many roses,” her little songbird laughs with a precious jingle, eyes now golden with the ritual done and the sacrifice made.


	19. The Masquerade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is one word that makes this part another plot dump. There is one thing that hints at the end of the party. See if you can guess those.

The stark contradiction between the forsaken streets patrolled by the hulking tallboys and the decadence and the debauchery of the opulent interior drowning in warmth, colors, and laughter makes the old soldier grit his teeth behind the mask in impotent resentment of the rich and well-born. The faces he recognizes and knows, the murmurs and voices he is familiar with, they all mingle and come together in unison, the hum painfully reminiscent of the life long past.

“So striking, two assassins, however, each take unique,” the old soldier bows his head passing through, the offhand quip of an aristocrat hurrying his search – a reminder of dwindling time left. Still, his quarry nowhere to be found.

The old soldier starts and stops when two familiar figures step in his way.

“How quaint,” Lena, hidden behind a red mask of death, runs her fingers over the smooth metal covering his face.

“Coming to the masquerade unmasked,” the Witch finishes for her, the cruel smirk dancing on her lips with mirth devoid of joy.

“I have no quarrel with you,” the old soldier responds tersely, his hand hovering over the rapier at his side, gloved fingers trembling with indecision.

“I know,” the Witch picks a black rose from her collar and lets it fall to the floor where it withers and crumbles to dust on the dark carpet. “You came to speak with the bluebird. Perchance, too late, since the Death you know so intimately came to dance with her too.”

“Where is she?”

“The princess?” Lena laughs and nuzzles the white rat perched on her shoulder, its beady eyes observing with interest, scaly tail coiled along the lines of her neck.

“She awaits you both in the garden with a trap set in place. Such a clever girl, wasn’t she always?” The Witch moves to the side, hand resting on her companion’s back light like a soft whisper. “I wonder, who will be the one to find her first? Who will dip their blade in crimson this very night?”

“You know nothing, Amelie,” the old soldier passes them.

“Tell me then, old fool, how deep does the betrayal run?” The Witch laughs at his back, cruel words slipping from her lips. “Is there anything left for you to hold on?” She mocks him as he follows the path outside.

The night is warm and damp, the air of the night breeze carries a kiss of smoke and blood. The lanterns paint the lush growth with a warm glow. When the old soldier stops, she turns to him, blade at her side unsheathed.

“I’m glad you are well, Jack,” her eyes are hard with a purpose, yet a small smile graces her face. The blue shine of her armor shifts as she raises her hand in a gesture of deference.

“Farah,” the old soldier moves his mask aside.

“Or should I call you **Reaper** now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love all people that commented on this strange endeavor. It's nearing its end - storywise.


	20. The Musicbox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It might be another part of the puzzle. Or not.

Reaper.

The name quivers in the air between them, a testament of the chasm dividing forever – one that can never be crossed for the belief rooted deep sets the stage for the betrayal of the trust. Fareeha bows her head in an apology, the sword held firmly in her hand, knuckles whitening with the force of her grip, the obligation chosen weighing her down.

“Fareeha,” the old soldier asks her again, the plea in his voice painful for both of them, for it was never needed before when she was but a little girl.

“No. You were a father to me once,” she rebuffs him, her face now held high, lips set in resolve reached long ago. “I understand the injustice of what had been done to you and nothing will ever right those wrongs, but I can’t let you go on. I will protect the Empire, and my mother, with my life. This is what you’ve taught me, Jack, and for this, I am forever thankful to you.”

“You have to listen…” She rushes forward, a blue streak in the warm glow of artificial light, and the old soldier stands his ground. He will not raise his hand against her.

He needs not to, for the shadows take the dreaded shape and stand in her way, matching every blow with flickering blades in the shower of sparks.

“Little Princess heeded her lessons well,” Reaper snarls when she retreats back, her eyes wide with the sudden revelation of all the things assumed in error. “Yet forgot the one not to trust what is plain to see.”

“You,” Fareeha meets the gaze of the old soldier, observes the words left unsaid – words she had not allowed to be said and heard that shatter her heart – and gives a sign, for the trap has been laid and sprung in a cacophony of discordant melodies.

The old soldier flinches at the biting pain in his palm, yet no worse than any other moment he chanced upon the musicboxes, but the assassin collapses with a hoarse scream to the ground, thrashing in agony, silvery claws ripping the earth beneath with frantic frenzy.

“Forgive me,” the old soldier whispers and she understands the tears teetering on the rim of his eyes as he crushes the brittle bone between his fingers – the mournful song briefly fluttering at the edge of the hearing – and moves past her in a flutter of a shadow.

Fareeha slowly treads forward, minding not the joining voices of the dying and the jarring screeches of broken metal contraptions, for what is she if not her mother’s daughter? Each step brings her closer, yet her head is held high in a dare, and when the music disappears she stares down her Death and offers him a smile as the blade sinks in her breast.

“Is vengeance worth it all?” She asks the man that is not here before her.

“Yes,” her Death offers her the answer and lets her fall away, into the old soldier’s embrace, into his trembling hands, and she is glad, for she is among friends and family. She closes her eyes and for a fleeting moment, she is but a little girl again.

The Hidden Heir passes away.


	21. The Songbird's Anthem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabble warning: Suicide

Their naked feet deliberately wade through the tangled carpet of black roses bristling with thorns, in rhythm with a languid melody carried on the air like a sweet dark promise of the sea and that what sleeps under its surface, beckoning with the night tide rising.

The sweet aroma of the rose petals mingles with the smell of putrid seaweed and decaying flesh of things that dwell in murky waters caught in the cutoff loughs, and they dance - joined as one – for this is their becoming.

Through the vacant halls, the harmony of oceans leads them: the Witch and the Ratcatcher nestled snugly in each other’s embrace, in unison breathing in the heady scent of vows made and kept.

“My Songbird,” the Witch whispers, her thumb brushing her little bird’s bottom lip.

“Amelie,” Lena brings her crimson-tainted hands to her face with adoration.

They step over the bodies, of the cruel father, of the silent mother, of the sister oblivious, and the red rivers they spill that seek the ever-forgiving mouth of the sea.

They share the knowing kiss, the potent wine dizzying with its concealed secret shared between their tongues; they seat themselves on the couch, their fingers twined, their heads leaning together.

“My friend, my love, my reason,” Amelie smiles.

“My everything,” Lena sings.

The white rat comes to rest between them, its sparkling black eyes taking in the stage set for the ruin and downfall of all.

*

When the Death passes over, the black roses wilt and the uneven tangle of the thorny vines recedes like a nightmarish green tide, leaving in its wake the offerings of bloated carcasses strewn on precious carpets.

He finds them, together, in an embrace shy and humble, a centerpiece of serenity in the eye of the violent storm.

“Another name off the list, yet the blade that cut their life was not yours,” the Outsider states, his palm resting on the back of the couch. “No, it was the blade most insidious – their own.”

“It matters not, the deed is done,” Reaper answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus concludes Widowmaker and Tracer story arc with foreshadowing.


	22. The Lion and His Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welp. This happened.

The palace bathed in the light of the breaking morning stands desolate – a monument to the Empire – resisting the furious blows of the oncoming storm that chip away at its walls, its foundations ready to crumble for there is a crack, a wedge driven deep by the deeds of the one that should be its stone.

The old soldier steps into the empty halls of the place once the second home to him, the quiet interrupted only by the howling wind caught in gaps of open windows and a flutter of a curtain. He passes tables set for a feast, forgotten and abandoned, with decay slowly creeping in among the scuttle of small clawed feet and hairless tails. Black round eyes escort him on his way.

There, in the audience hall, the Lord Protector stands before the throne, age and sorrow heavy on his shoulders when he stirs and leans on his hammer.

“My friend. I am glad to see you well.”

“Reinhardt.”

The silence falls heavy between them, seconds ticking away in the hourglass, and the Void hungers.

“I’m sorry for…” Reinhardt interrupts him with a wave of his hand.

“I believe you, my friend, but the time for words is long past, only my final duty remains.”

“I will not fight you,” the old soldier holds the rapier in his left hand and the crossbow in his right regardless of the sentiment his voice carries, for it is no time nor place for honor where obligation lays its claim, and he is no fool when it comes to the world of courtly intrigue.

“But I will,” the Death, his one true companion and destination, answers the challenge with both daggers drawn and at the ready, “for all the deeds done call upon the blood in recompense.”

The side doors fly open and the guardsmen flood the chamber.

*

When the Lord Protector falls – daggers like poisoned fangs sunk in his throat – the old soldier kneels by the body of his once friend and, lost in the memory, remembers the different life. It is only when the claws bite into his skin and force his face upwards that he sees her – **the Empress** – standing rigidly on the balcony overlooking the throne room, fingers clenched on the balustrade.

“Do you understand it yet? Do you comprehend the gravity of their sins?” Reaper whispers into his ear and the old soldier nods. “Do you confess to your own sins?”

“I do.”

Reaper laughs, a bitter bark that cuts as does the touch of metal on his cheek.

“Come now, Jack. Only two more lives to claim before the curtain falls.”

So the old soldier follows, towards his own death.


	23. The Final Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the last part - apart from the endings (if you notice the chapter counter is now up). This also, in a way, marks the first completed thing :).

Unafraid, she bares her proud back – framed in silvery strands of hair – to them, for she is the rock the Empire stands upon, hers is the voice that commands loyalty born out of love, friendship, and obligation – yet that stone is cracked and splintered – and so are the allegiances twisted to serve their own ends.

When she speaks, it is with a disdain that conceals wrath and despair at labors of years laid to waste, of intricate planning coming to a fruitless conclusion on this day that will see the Empire’s putrid carcass beached on the shore of the ever-hungry black ocean for all scavengers to feast upon.

“I should have had both of you killed.” The white muslin dances around her form like a ghastly miasma as she turns, her hand raised and fingers coiled around the grip of the small crossbow. “And why? Tell me first, does the Regent not wish to hold his authority still? Does the Spy not wish to grasp power and escape the shadows of his own making?”

“She was too young to ascend the throne,” the old soldier lowers his head – his voice ringing hollow in the chamber – stripped bare not unlike the floors and walls of the hall. “Were she of age, she would have made a glorious Empress.”

“And maybe you would have had let her, but he, with the hate churning in his breast, what would he do to keep the one he cherished so, and detested, happy?” She raises her chin haughtily. “It would take but a drop of poison, or a blade in the dark, or one guard missing at the right hour. But then, without you, his bite would be dull – innoxious – and this frothing mad dog would be begging to be put down to save him from his own misery.”

“And you do believe the very words that come out of your mouth,” Reaper snarls, his head inclined to the side. “You claim to know the nature of the man you speak of, yet what rose from his grave stands before you, the hand that grasped your designs and crushed them, not out of love, but for the revenge, and only two more separate him from the fulfillment.”

He stalks forward and the Empress fires, the bolt burying itself deep into his shoulder only to be ripped out with a guttural growl and thrown to the side. She falters not, reloading, stretching the string, turning. The white fabric follows her every move as if it were smoke twirling on the nightly air – enveloping her – and the shot misses him – Reaper laughs until the world explodes in fire.

The old soldier rolls to lie on his back, breathing in the fumes, with the heat nipping at his skin, and the roar of the flames ringing in his ears. Slowly, clutching at his side, he raises, to see him, the Reaper, standing over her with silvery claws stained red, dripping crimson onto pristine fabric, illuminated by the flickering lights of the encroaching inferno.

The old soldier minds the words that tell his fate as he laboriously makes his way through the rubble – he rebels not for it was his pride and false virtue that started them on this path – and the time of penance has finally come. It is merely a whispered name and a gentle touch away.

“Gabriel,” his fingers brush against the black leather, blood on his lips, and a white-hot stab of pain in his breast, but the old soldier smiles regardless – peace upon his thoughts once again – when the claws pierce his heart. “It is fine.”


	24. Ending A: The Mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> High Chaos Ending. Please Read the note :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many feels. 1. This is kind of 'choose your own adventure' deal, three endings: high chaos, low chaos, canon. The endings depend on how you interpret the protagonist's actions and motivations, but! Jack is not the protagonist of the story, he is the passive agent even if the story is mostly told from his point of view, the active agent of the story, the real protagonist, is Gabriel - at least for me. 2. All endings were conceptualized and written before the announcement of the Death of the Outsider and the canon ending anecdotally was based on my own headcanons from Dishonored 1&2\. 3. I don't remember if I had done this already, but I'm plugging in this art I found after I had the most of the story plotted out: http://fowo.tumblr.com/post/151253245911/i-did-what-every-sane-person-should-do-i-drew and it might be not obvious, but Gabriel was the Spy Master.

The old soldier smiles, gentle and peaceful, as Gabriel, terrified of what he had done, lowers him to the ground.

“It is fine,” he assures him again. “I see you.”

The fingers on Gabriel’s wrist grow lax and the old soldier passes away quietly, blood pooling just like wings below him.

He leaves him there for the fire to claim.

In the following years, while the Empire crumbles down on itself shaken by the internal conflict and vicious struggle for the throne, Reaper lives in a darkness inexplicable and inescapable, and not even the pain he feels at the touch of the mask at his hip – the old soldier’s mask – brings any distraction.

One day, the last testimonies to the old soldier’s existence, him and the mask at his hip, will fade away too, erased forever from the world. 


	25. Ending B: The Voyage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Low Chaos ending :)

The old soldier smiles, gentle and peaceful, as Gabriel, terrified of what he had done, lowers him to the ground.

“It is fine,” he assures him again. “I see you.”

But Gabriel screams, refuses to accept the obvious, he fights, he won’t let go, he threatens and he begs. He cries and he swears.

He wins, his hands bloodied, the fluttering heartbeat, the rasping breath and the pained gasp his boon. He laughs, and there is no other proof of the old soldier’s existence than Gabriel himself.

A week later, while the capital burns behind them, the plague and the riots spilling everywhere, the old soldier rests on the deck, his chest bound tight with linens still coloring red, pale and weak, Gabriel comes to him and laces their fingers together. They share a knowing smile, leaving in the past the rumors of the assassins that will grow to become legends of their own with time enough.

A whole continent awaits them, to start afresh, to spend their lives together yet again.

And Jack is the only proof of Gabriel’s existence in the world. This is more than enough.


	26. Ending C: The Old Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canon ending. Thank You for reading.

The old soldier smiles, gentle and peaceful, as Gabriel, terrified of what he had done, lowers him to the ground.

“It is fine,” he assures him again. “I see you.”

It is an end of an era – a new one begins – and all the signs are right. The Empire burns and collapses, embers from the fire catch and burn everything, wildfires spread and the world trembles in the death throes as everything falls like blocks in a child’s game. It all happens in a blink of an eye that takes years.

Gabriel cradles the cooling body to his chest. There is no proof of Jack’s existence in the world.

The Outsider fades.

*

Reaper doesn’t need a proof of his own existence because there is one always on his skin, on the back of his hand, in the hushed words shared in the streets – in the mask he wears and in the other one he keeps at his hip.

There is always another proof in silent nights when the sunless sea of the Void gently laps at the shores of simple reality and the Old Soldier welcomes him, the same gentle and warm smile on his face – it doesn’t pain him anymore like it did the first time.

Reaper doesn’t fear fading away in the end because he knows that the Old Soldier will always remember him, the first one he gave his Mark to, pressing it lightly into his skin with a delicate kiss, lingering touch and kindly word.

In the end, it is all that matters.


End file.
